Odd Piglet
by Akktri
Summary: Piglet sees dead people in the 100 Aker Wood.


My name is Piglet, and I see dead people. It's my blessing. My curse.

It seems that everywhere I go, I see them. That is why I live with animals in a place called the Hundred Aker Wood. The place is secluded so the presence of haunting spirits is rare. I can pretend like I have a normal life.

As a pig in a forest, I don't have a job. I just eat haycorns and hang out with my friend Pooh.

My talent complicates things. Because of this, I like to keep things simple. I have few possessions, therefore, I rely on Christopher Robin for the things I need. It's a good life. A good, simple, conflict free existence, which wouldn't make very good copy.

Things changed when I saw the Heffalump.

It came to me while I was in bed. I had just spent a busy day stumping around in the woods, helping my friend look for hunney and play a game of dropping sticks into a stream. I had just retired to my home inside the bole of a tree when I felt a presence.

I brushed my teeth, curled under the covers, and that's when I saw it.

The Heffalump was a gray-pink thing. The dead never speak. It just floated above me with tears rolling down its wrinkly face.

"C-c-can...I...h-help you?" I ventured. "W-w-what t-t-ties you t-t-to this m-mortal realm?"

The Heffalump just pointed at the door and flew through it.

I threw it open, running out into the night. The spirit was always two steps ahead of me, but I could still see it, so I kept running.

The stars were out, a full moon bathing the wood in a brilliant pale illumination.

As usual, Elvis Presley was hovering near my doorway. This time he wore a shirt straight out of Blue Hawaii.

The King had died while squeezing one out on the commode.

Elvis waved at me as I passed, then acted like he were straining to blow out a fart. When I ignored him, he looked sad.

Ghosts never talk, but sometimes they fart. I know that doesn't have anything to do with anything, but it's true. And it stinks.

This one smelled like eggs and something dead. No surprise from an extinct rock legend. I waved my hand in attempts to clear the air.

Okay, so it's more like a mitt. But I waved it, okay?

One time I tried to tell Christopher Robin about Elvis, but he's only twelve and his parents don't let him watch TV or listen to the radio. Mormons, he says they are.

Elvis Presley was a Baptist.

When the kid said he didn't know who Elvis was, the King cried like a butthole.

The King stared at me with a look of fear and horror, as if something or someone were behind me, waiting to kill me.

I looked back that way.

When I turned around, the ghost mouthed the words "Made you look."

Distracted by these pointless irrelevant things, I had to recalibrate my psychic magnetism to hone back in on the Heffalump.

I frowned and kept going.

Psychic magnetism is a special power I have, one that allows me to conveniently resolve plots Dean Koontz is too lazy to resolve by normal means. What I do is hold out a red horseshoe magnet, and it automatically draws me to all things ghostly.

The spirit stopped at Rabbit's hole, a little house dug in the side of a hill like some sort of Hobbit.

Rabbit was a perpetual gardener, his yard filled with turnips, carrots, corn, wheat, sunflowers, tomatoes and other fruits and vegetables. Ordinarily his plowing and tilling took an even course, but I'd noticed he'd always kept a large unevenly shaped mound in one corner of his plot, at odds with the uniformly flat furrows running through the rest of the field.

Whenever I asked, he said it was on account of the rocks being too heavy to move. The ghost hovering over the moonlit mound told me something different.

I raced over to the spot, digging in the soil with the pudgy mitts I called fingers. Although I knew and dreaded what I'd find, I was drawn by my psychic magnetism.

I pulled clod after clod away, throwing back piles of loose soil until my hands revealed a white skull, the meat and soft parts of its eyes eaten away by worms and maggots.

Fighting back the urge to vomit, I pulled more and more dirt back until the entire huge head was exposed.

The cranium had been pierced with a series of small holes, and one very large U shaped mark. I had a pretty good idea about what the murder weapon had been.

The ghost took my hand, leading me to the door of Rabbit's hole. I knocked.

Rabbit appeared at the door in a stocking cap and bed clothes. He held a candle on a little sconce, staring at me with weary confusion. "Piglet!" he exclaimed, looking very tense. "It's late. What do you want?"

"I-I-I-I k-k-k-know ab-b-bout th-the H-Hef-falump," I said.

He turned white as a sheet. "You do?"

"You k-k-k-killed him and b-bur-buried him in th-the g-garden."

The rabbit didn't say anything, his mouth hanging agape.

"You h-hit h-him over th-the h-head with a r-rake, th-then s-stab-bed h-him w-with a t-trow-trowel."

The rabbit set down his candle, picking up a wooden chair.

"You've found me out, Piglet," he said. "That was very clever."

He stepped closer. "Too clever."

He raised the chair, bringing it down on my head. I blacked out.


End file.
